Vice Admiral Schell stood with trepidation in the cold room,
fidgeting with the insignia on his uniform while waiting for the
arrival of his associate. Waiting too long. Always it was like that,
always a game with their kind.

But the game was almost over.

Finally the door opened, and the Romulan walked over to
where Schell was sitting; the same table where they'd had many conver-
sations over the past few months. Without asking first, he ordered
two drinks, one for himself and the other for Schell. Perhaps he'd come
to realize that Schell was not going to turn him down. The smirk on
the Romulan's face indicated to Schell that there was more to it than
that.

"Well?" Schell said after their drinks had been delievered. The
Romulan looked at him, his eyes gleaming in the room's dim light.

"It's finished," the Romulan said, and casually took a sip of
his drink. Savoring both the taste of it and the look on Schell's face.

"You're certain?" Schell asked nervously. But he was beginning
to grin; after all this time, his hard work would soon pay off.

"The Goldswell incident provided the most impressive proof,"
the Romulan said. "And those were only the prototypes. My associate
informed me just an hour ago that the final version was now complete.
They're finished."

"Excellent," Schell said. He didn't realize he was rubbing his
hands together until he looked down and noticed. He laid his hands
palm flat on the table to keep from fidgeting, then leaned forward.
"Shall we begin phase two?" he muttered lowly.

"Already underway," the Romulan said. He took another long sip
of his drink, making Schell wait. "Our team is in-route now to pick
up our package of the finished product."

"What of the others? She'll surely have made more to use for
her own means," Schell said. The Romulan rose from the table,
straightening the tunic he wore. It was his sign to Schell that the
meeting was over.

"They'll all be destroyed, of course," the Romulan said. He
nodded once more to Schell, then turned and left the room. Schell
looked down at the glass in front of him, took a long drink, and began
smiling again.

FIRST ITERATION

"Eat, drink, and be merry.
For tomorrow we die."
-Dave Matthews Band

T'ganna closed the door behind her and fell more than lowered
herself into the chair behind her large desk. Outside, in the lab,
the technicians were all shouting and cheering, reveling in the fact
that they had at long last finished a project that many of them had
been working on for years. They were celebrating the fact that they
were finished, and tomorrow they would take a shuttle out of this
fascility, hidden deep within an asteroid. They had not had any
contact with the outside for several years now, and they understandably
longed to get back to their families on Romulus.

Romulus... she had no desire to go there. She would, of course,
because she would have to report to the elite group of government men
who had given her the job of overseeing this little "project." She
hated these men, distrusted them. She knew there were similar men in
the Federation, as most of the equipment, indeed the entire fascility,
had been built by Federation crews out of Federation supplies.

She rubbed her hands over her temples, trying to massage away
a headache that was brewing. Yes, she had packaged the cylinder that
was to go to her Federation "contact," as well as the one she would
take back to Romulus. And she had also prepared a cylinder for herself,
for her own use. She would use it when the time was right to destroy
her enemies.

T'ganna's mind flashed back to her brother, sitting at the
helm of her Warbird as the terminal erupted into flames in front of
him. He was engulfed, burned to death. Before the viewscreen had
shorted out in front of her, she recalled seeing that ship...that
damned Federation ship. It had humiliated her this way...it and its
crew were responsible for her brother's death. She would make them
pay.

She would make the Defiant pay.

There was a chime on the computer terminal on her desk, and
reluctantly she answered the call. The image of Kast came onto the
screen. "Greetings, T'ganna," the young man said. He was human,
in his mid-twenties, with dark hair and green eyes. Though he smiled
warmly enough, T'ganna thought that those eyes made him look sly,
sinister.

"You're early," she said, not really surprised.

"I'm preparing to beam down to pick up the...package," Kast
said. "The shuttle to take you and your men to Romulus is set to
arrive in eight hours."

She nodded, very, very tired, and punched in the authorization
code that would lower the asteroid's shields and allow Kast to beam
down. The terminal in front of her went black as the message ended, and
then there was a faint glow next to her desk as Kast materialized. He
was holding a large black case.

"What's that?" T'ganna asked, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Romulan ale for you and your men," Kast said, smiling warmly.
"Admiral Schell sends it as thanks and congradulations on a job well
done." Kast looked out through her office door, at the men out there,
one of whom was dancing with his chair. "In case your current supply
is insufficient," he said. He sat the box on a table near a computer
terminal on the right wall. "Where is the cylinder?"

T'ganna walked over to the terminal, pressed one button, and
the entire section of wall rotated 180 degrees around, revealing a
wall-rack containing two large metal cylinders. There was a third,
T'ganna knew, HER cylinder, on the underside of the table next to
them. She had no intentions of letting Kast or his Federation superior
know about that one. She took one of the cylinders from the wall and
handed it to Kast. He took it, smiled, and nodded to her.

"The shuttle will be here in eight hours," Kast said, tapping
his communicator. "Until we meet again." He grinned at her in that
sly way until he vanished in the transporter light. T'ganna closed
the secret compartment, once again displaying the computer terminal
to the room. She looked at the men outside, celebrating the end of
their confinement, and thought of how she would avenge her brother's
death once she was back on Romulus and given another command. Until
then, she would drink to her brother. She reach over to the box Kast
had left and popped it open.

As the flames engulfed her, she had only a second to realize
that she had met her brother's fate, and now there would be no one
to avenge their deaths.

* * *

The asteroid exploded before Kast even activated the
remote-control, and he cursed under his breath. The woman had opened
the box, he realized. He had thought that she would wait, at least
give him time to get the shuttle safely away from the asteroid. The
shuttle rocked as the blast wave from the explosion reached it, and
he could see the shuttle being bombarded by flames and bits of debris
from the station. He boosted power to the sheilds as a large piece
of the station's interior crashed into the starboard side. Kast
transferred power to allow more maneuverability, and then punched the
warp engines. The shuttle entered warp as the last of the station
exploded, leaving no evidence it had ever existed.

SECOND ITERATION

"At the time you don't think much of it,
you know, we just don't recognize the most
significant moments of our lives. Back
then I thought, "There'll be other days..."
I didn't realize that was the only day."
-Kevin Costner

As the door closed behind him, Jeffrey Bridges's first
thought was that the room was small. Everything was tan colored,
too, but he couldn't tell if it was because the room's wall were
that color, or because the late afternoon sun was beaming through
the windows on both sides.

He was in a hospital, an ancient earth one. A nurse in
a long white skirt moved past him, and he saw that all the patients
lying in the beds around him were pale. Most were coughing lowly,
weakly. This was a damned depressing place for a holodeck program,
and he wondered what the hell John would be doing here. He looked
down at the far end of the room and saw Hardin standing there, leaning
against a post, watching two men. One was lying in the bed, the
other sitting in a chair next to him. It looked as if they were playing
cards, but the one in the bed was too sick or too tired to hold them.

As he walked closer, he heard the man sitting down say, "I
call." He looked at his cards, then took the man in the bed's cards
and looked at them. "You win," he said.

"Set a course to intercept," Bridges said. "I'm on my way,
Bridges out." Hardin called for the arch, and ended the program. As
they were leaving, Bridges said, "You should try being in the story
sometime. Trust me, it's far more enjoyable than just standing by
watching."

Minutes later they arrived on the bridge. "We're approaching
the vessel now, sir," Lebin said.

"Hail them," Bridges ordered.

"They aren't responding," Wolfrom said from behind him. "I
think their communications system has failed."

"Lifesigns?" Hardin asked.

"Two people aboard," Myah answered, her fingers running over
the computer terminal in front of her.

"What did the distress signal say was wrong?" Bridges asked.

"There was no voice message, sir," Lebin said. "A standard
SOS beacon signal was sent. We were the only ship in the area. This
is the transport freighter 'OutRider,' sir," Lebin reads from the
report that has just come up in front of him. "I left starbase 2 just
a few hours ago."

"Just left the starbase and already technical problems?"
Hardin asked.

"Not likely, Commander," Bridges said. He stared at the ship
on the screen. "Were they attacked?"

"There are no signs of any attack on the vessel," Myah said.

"Why don't I go over there, take a look before we beam
anybody over? Find out what the problem is," Hardin said.

Bridges nodded. "Make it so. Take Bishop with you, just
in case," he said. Hardin moved off the bridge, followed by the
Defiant's Borg security operative.

* * *

The transport completed, and Hardin and Bishop found
themselves on the 'OutRider.' It was a small freighter-like ship,
and they were standing in the dining area. To their right was a
round table with a checked pattern on its top, perhaps used for
some sort of holo-game, Hardin thought.

Bishop suddenly twitched hard to his right, then his
left. He settled back to his standing position, and Hardin looked
at him. "Are you allright? What the hell was that about?"

Hardin was about to step toward the Borg when a line of green
light suddenly blared into the wall behind them, causing an explosion
there. Hardin drew his phaser and turned to look up the corridor,
towards the cockpit, and saw two Romulans dressed in civilian clothes
were crouched at the doorway, firing disruptors at them.

"What the hell's going on here?" Hardin said to no one in
particular. In answer, the beam above him exploded from a disruptor
blast, and he had to roll out the way of the falling structure.

"TIL ALL ARE ONE!!!!!" he heard the Romulans scream at them
simultaneously. It was like some hellish stereo. He looked around,
saw Bishop was twitching madly against the wall, and realized that
he hadn't been prepared for this. He tapped his communicator and
shouted "Get us out of here NOW!" In the light of the transporter
beam, he saw the Romulans come running forward.

And then he was on the Defiant. Ry was at the controls in
front of him, and she came forward as he descended the stairs with
the staggering Bishop. "What happened?" she asked.

"I wish I knew," Hardin said. "Take him to sickbay, and
have Bedard meet you there in case there are any..." he looked at
the Borg. "...Technical difficulties." She nodded, and Hardin left
the transporter room for the bridge.

* * *

"And that's all they said?" Bridges asked in his ready room
as Hardin relayed his story. Hardin nodded.

"Not as near as I can tell," Myah said. "All the ship's
systems seem to be working perfectly well according to every level
diagnostic I've performed."

"What's Bishop's condition?" Bridges asked, turning to Laine
Rael.

She frowned. "I don't know, and he can't tell me. Everytime
I ask him, all he'll say is 'Unknown.' But I do know that he's
scanning everything. I mean EVERYTHING. His internal scanning
systems are on overdrive. It's like he's trying to take in everything
he can."

"Should Bishop be confined?" Jennifer Matute asked. The last
thing she wanted was a rogue Borg running loose if he was behaving
irrationally.

"No, not yet," Bridges said. "I want you to-"

Suddenly Chad Mackowick's voice came over the com. "Sir? I
think you'd better come out here...the 'OutRider' is leaving."

"What?" Bridges said. He and his crew left the conference
table and returned to the bridge. "Report," he ordered. Lebin
ran his fingers over his terminal.

"Sir, the freighter is heading back towards starbase 3," he
said.

"Then it's doing it on it's own, because no one's piloting
it," Myah said, and Bridges turned to look at her. "There are no
longer any life signs aboard that ship."

On the viewscreen they watched the OutRider move away from
them, slowly at first, but picking up speed.

"The OutRider is moving to intercept the shuttle, sir," Lebin
reported. "It is firing at the shuttle."

On the viewscreen, they saw the OutRider begin a dizzying
spiraling flight pattern, somehow managing to keep its phasers locked
onto the small Romulan shuttle.

"How the hell is it flying like that?" Mackowick asked as the
shuttle took hit after hit. The OutRider wasn't missing.

"U.S.S. Defiant!" came a frantic voice over the com.

"We are being hailed by the shuttle," Myah said. She put it on
speakers without being told to.

"U.S.S. Defiant! Please! Beam me aboard! You must get me away
from this shuttle, NOW!"

"Bridge to transporter room, do you have a lock?" Bridges asked.

"Aye, captain," Emeras said.

"Get him out of there," Bridges ordered.

"Sir, more ships are entering the area...Federation vessels,"
Myah said.

"About time. Now maybe we can get some answers," Hardin said.

"Oh my God," Myah said. Hardin and Bridges turned to look at
her. "There are no life signs aboard any of the three Federation
ships entering this sector."

On the viewscreen, the OutRider back off from the shuttle, which
was somehow still functioning. Bridges wondered what kind of shields
that thing had to have to have survived this long. Then three massive
Federation starships moved in, one galaxy-class and the other two
intrepid-class. To Bridges's surprise, all three fired phasers on the
Romulan shuttle, which immediatly erupted into a ball of fire.

"I have him sir," Emeras's voice came back over the com. "He
insists that he must speak with you at once."

Bridges turned to Matute. "Have security escort him to the
bridge," he said. She nodded and began giving the order.

The viewscreen in front of them suddenly looked very
peaceful. The three Federation ships were slowly fanning out to face
the Defiant, and the OutRider hung just below the galaxy-class
vessel.

"Identify those ships," Bridges ordered.

"I can't, sir," Lebin said. "No transponder signals are
active, for some reason, and as you can see, the hull appears to be...
altered."

Lebin punched up a magnify button, and hull of the galaxy-class
vessel zoomed into view. Where it's name and identification number
should have been, the hull was an etched chrome color. Bridges looked
closely, saw that there were no windows visible. And something else..
something not quite right...

"Maginify," he said. "Again. Again."

And suddenly the saw what was wrong: the hull of the vessel
was moving. Shimmering, as if the very metal the ship were made out of
were rustling in some nonexistant wind.

"Get us out of here," Bridges mumbled, and Mackowick went
to work. The Defiant turned away from the ships, then suddenly a
voice came over the com.

"Til All Are One. Til All Are One. Til All Are One."

It kept repeating over and over. "The message is coming from
the other Federation vessels, sir!" Myah shouted.

"Chad! Warp Speed! NOW!" Bridges yelled.

He fulled the slight lurch of the ship as the stars on the
viewscreen became starlines, and soon the Defiant had safely entered
Warp.

"The other ships are not pursuing," Lebin said.

The doors to the bridge opened, and two security men escorted
in a Romulan male. He looked tired; the tunic he wore was ragged.
"You have to stay away from them," he said to the captain, glad
to see that the ship had entered warp. "Don't get too close," he said
lowly. "They can jump."

"Who can jump? Who are you?" Bridges said.

"The nanites can jump," the Romulan said. "Quite well
actually." He laughed lowly. "Believe me, no one was more surprised
than I."

"Why were those Federtion vessels firing on you?" Hardin asked.

"Federation?" the Romulan said. "There IS no Federation. At
least there won't be very, very soon. They've already taken in everything from starbase-3 to earth. Sector 001 is theirs already. They
control every vessel, every officer, in that entire sector now, and
you'd better get as far away from here as possible, or they'll get
all of you too."

It occured to Bridges that the Romulan was a madman, and that
he ought to just let the security team lock him in the brig. But
something about he man, something about his demeaner, told Bridges
that he'd better listen to what this man had to say, that to do
otherwise could be disastrous.